A Day to Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - One Survivor's Personal Journey to Uncover the Truth (51 page)

In everyday life, I get on quietly, sorting out problems as and when they arise. This was the approach I had taken to running my business. The setbacks that often arose were solved in an intelligent manner, and through this I had learnt both to negotiate and to stand my ground. However, in the period that followed the disaster of 1996, I pushed the tragic events into the dark and inaccessible recesses of my mind. This was a problem I was unable to solve. The outcome of 10 May was fixed; nothing I could say or do was going to change it. The guilt I carried could not be negotiated or bargained with, neither could the finality of death.

None of the accounts in the climbing press that followed in the summer of 1996 made any reference to prior knowledge by way of a specific altitude weather forecast for the Everest region. So when I read the two quotes my initial feelings were a mixture of bewilderment and anger. I felt these not simply for myself and those on our team but also for the casualties of the storm. I sensed that this should never have happened. What I failed to realise was that those of us who had sat out the storm on the South Col had also been victims.

I had departed from Everest that year convinced that in light of the conditions we had observed high on the mountain on the afternoon of 10 May we should have anticipated that events might spiral out of control for these two guided teams. My mind dealt with this alien experience in the only way it could: by shutting it out. This was my denial.

In the years that followed, I turned my back on the whole episode and read none of the books that began to appear. In consequence, I gave my feelings no chance to be aired, no opportunity for me to release the resentment and guilt that I felt, so they stayed with me.

The sight of a large film crew at Everest Base Camp in 2004, when Catherine and I were visiting some friends there, was the final straw. I’d had enough of what I instinctively felt was a deception. My anger and dismay were reinforced by what I saw. My denial was trying to break free from its shackles, but I was yet to realise it had existed at all.

On reflection, at the onset of my personal journey, all I had wanted to do was expose the truth behind 10 May 1996, about why it had happened. In reality, people already suspected that the cause had centred on poor decisions and the unspoken rivalry between Rob and Scott looking towards their respective future businesses in this lucrative guiding of Everest, but I had wanted to go much further than this, to expose the true depths of this whole sorry affair.

Once I had proof that weather forecasts were being received into Everest Base Camp prior to 10 May, and the information the archives said these contained, it opened up a whole new understanding as to what had actually led to the disastrous outcome.

With the information I now had, I pieced together the events leading up to 10 May, but this time with the truth in place. It read like a Shakespearean tragedy. Rob Hall and Scott Fischer had cast themselves in the lead roles by announcing that their two teams would make a summit bid on this day. It pre-determined the position of each of the players when the storm hit Everest. By asking us to go on 11 May they had even supplied our curtain call to walk onto this deadly stage. In the west, a spectre was gathering, one that had appeared on the forecasts nearly a week earlier, one that Rob and Scott knew was coming. But they had not taken enough account of the days either side of the peak of the storm, of twists in fate, communications faltering or of opportunities missed. These were compounded by a blizzard during which visibility all but disappeared, leaving would-be but uninformed rescuers out of sight. Their rivalry had made them vulnerable: a trait that others on the mountain had not expected to see from these two highly experienced climbers and one that would put their two entire teams in danger. Nor had they told us of this maelstrom rushing towards Everest.

It was apparent that those in possession of the most advanced weather information ever available for an Everest expedition had ended up walking their high-paying clients straight into the rising storm. Somehow it had deluded them into thinking they could tread ever closer to the edge of risky judgements. Their stubborn decision to make their summit bid on 10 May, despite the weather forecasts, suggests they seemed to think the storm would hold off in its entirety, without any build-up, until emerging almost in an instant on the following day. But that is not what the forecasts predicted.

I began to realise that what Rob and Scott had effectively done by asking us to go for the summit on 11 May and then not telling us about the subsequent information they received predicting a storm on that day had been foolish. This selfish act on their behalf could have easily put us in mortal danger. But they had done so because they’d lost touch with reality; they were no longer in full control of rational thoughts. Their self-imposed pressure had brought them to decisions that were totally out of character. Rob and Scott had stepped far beyond the line, not by asking us to go on 11 May but by doing so with tunnel vision. They were focused only on their competition. They took no account of the consequences of their request and the responsibility this placed on them should information come to hand that suggested we would be put at risk.

So, history took its course. The storm, which the forecasters had said was to be fronted by increasing wind speeds, ones that Rob and Scott had observed gradually building up over the preceding days, struck on the afternoon of 10 May with life-threatening force. The intensification of the wind to this level had occurred some 12 hours earlier than they had gambled on, and, to make matters worse, a sudden drop in temperature and blizzard conditions accompanied this howling gale.

Described as the worst day in the history of Everest, 10 May 1996 had been an appointment with fate already set in stone several days before it happened. Vital information was there on the mountain, but it was not drawn upon to protect lives; instead, it was played in a high-risk strategy. It was a game my fellow teammates and I had unwittingly become a part of. Only luck had saved us from a similar end.

The anger I’d originally felt towards Rob and Scott had long since faded; now I felt only sadness. Sadness that the competition between them for a successful season, success that would be reported back in the US and which could be the key to their future business, had brought them to a series of uncharacteristic decisions, ones that in the end had made them authors of their own demise and that of Doug Hansen, Yasuko Namba and Andy Harris. Had they stepped back for one moment to heed the signs, to consider their decisions, their course of action, no one need have died.

Scott, although slow and feeling unwell on that fateful day, knew that all his clients were on their way back down to the South Col. He was unaware of events yet to unfold. It appears from the accounts I have read, that Scott, during his descent, displayed behaviour that would indicate he was suffering from cerebral oedema. Scott realised he was sick but was unaware he was losing touch with reality, as shown by the report that he asked for a helicopter. Hopefully as this detachment accelerated it spared him the final comprehension of the terrible circumstance he was in.

Rob, on the other hand, was completely lucid as he struggled down the heavily corniced South East Ridge towards the Hillary Step in gale-force winds with a rapidly ailing Doug Hansen. Desperately radioing for help, Rob, over several hours, managed to drag or cajole Doug most of the way towards the South Summit. Tragically, Doug, a much-loved father of two, was not destined to complete this short distance. At what point during their epic struggle to survive, battling against the ferocious winds, did the relevance of Rob’s knowledge that ‘they went on 10 May because they knew the weather was going to go bad the next day’ tear at his very soul? Was it when he knew Doug had passed away? Or when his concerns turned to the whereabouts of Andy Harris, who was nowhere to been seen the following morning after he’d bravely climbed back up through the storm to try to aid Rob in Doug’s rescue? Or was it when he lay badly frostbitten in the realisation he would never see his wife again or set eyes on his unborn child?

How could I feel anything but sadness for the anguish he must have felt as he lay there waiting for death, perhaps in the comprehension that only he had brought himself to this point?

It may have been the biting cold that eventually took these five desperate souls, but it wasn’t the storm that really killed them.

Like so many tragedies that have in the past been thrust into the public domain, closer analysis reveals a series of wrong decisions. At each fork in the road, those in charge made the incorrect choice time after time, so drawing them towards an inevitable conclusion. May 10th, the day that first Rob, then Scott, sought above all others, would cloud their judgement. They’d ignore their more cautious natures borne out of previous experience, setting a course that would steer both of them and three others to their deaths.

In the aftermath, both survivors and victims carried with them a feeling of guilt that they could have done more. I now realised that what had transpired on 10 May was not our fault. From our team’s perspective, we bore the anguish that had we been told of what was happening outside our tent, or been asked for assistance, then we could have put together a rescue. But this is regret, not guilt; the pain of this will fade in time. Rob Hall and Scott Fischer knew the storm was coming; they should never have been up there in the first place. The two loaded dice they rolled that day each had six faces, five of which warned them of the dangers that they knew lay ahead. The remaining faces, one on each die, read ‘competition’ and ‘future business’ respectively. These lightweight sides faced uppermost, the only ones they chose to see and the ones on which they gambled everything.

In my search for the full facts, it became apparent that some of those who’d been unclear in their responses to me or reticent when questioned on the issue of forecasts were amongst those who it seems had full knowledge of the accurate weather forecasts received at Everest Base Camp prior to 10 May, but they had chosen not to put this clearly and unambiguously into their accounts: a decision that had continued for more than 14 years and one that had been veiled behind a human tragedy.

I lost count of how many hundreds of emails I sent, the number of letters posted, to give those concerned the opportunity to have their say, their right of reply. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has ever attempted to answer my question of why the earlier forecasts were not made clear in any of the accounts that followed the disaster of 10 May.

Looking back at my own emotions in the days immediately after the disaster, I had felt empty, numbed and an overwhelming sense of sadness for the families of the deceased. Only a month or so previously they had waved goodbye to their loved ones, who now lay as frozen corpses on Everest’s upper reaches.

Clearly I understood at this time that the events would be in the news, but I had no idea it would be such a huge story that would give rise to films and books that would sell in their millions, then more books and more films. In truth, I don’t think anyone who was at Everest Base Camp that year could have predicted the public would have such an appetite for the story.

Within a matter of days, members of the press from all over the world were heading for Nepal, some of whom helicoptered into Base Camp; telephone interviews had taken place. It seems likely that this was how everyone came to talk about a ‘rogue storm’ that had ‘blown in without any warning’ and had caught out these teams near the summit of Everest. And so, it seems, the story was born. The questions about this particular aspect ceased.

The press were so preoccupied with Rob and Scott’s teams, the Imax team and one or two others, mostly Americans, that a small Danish contingent on a commercial expedition appeared to be of little interest in this highly volatile media scrum, and so they were never questioned. Once they’d called an end to their expedition, the Danes simply packed up and went back home to their normal careers and stayed out of the furore that followed.

Had the press been made aware that forecasts were received in Base Camp prior to the tragedy, the questions would have come thick and fast. Surely chief amongst these would have been ‘Had these forecasts predicted a storm?’ Other questions would have quickly followed, such as:

Had Rob Hall’s and Scott Fischer’s high-paying clients been given full details of what the forecasts contained and therefore climbed with full knowledge of the risks they were taking?

Had other teams put rescue plans in place and were they prepared to react quickly?

Were the forecasts and what they contained shared and disseminated widely, and, if not, could such information have reduced fatalities?

The sequence of decisions leading up to 10 May suggested Rob and Scott had exposed their teams to an unacceptable level of risk. Surely this would bring worrying implications for grieving families? How might they react to such news? These are all questions a rational person would ask.

As it was, newspaper headlines splashed across the globe announced ‘Rogue Storm Kills Climbers Being Guided Up Everest’ and ‘Eight Die in Everest’s Freak Storm’. The press soon latched on to the financial aspect. Cynical headlines appeared about people paying large sums of money to be guided up Everest, as though it were some new form of tourism for the well off. They showed little mercy and took no account of any previous climbing experience that Rob and Scott’s clients might have had. Yet, notwithstanding this initial rush to get the breaking news of Mount Everest’s worst-ever disaster on the front page of newspapers, magazines and Internet websites, it seems that no real investigative, probing questions appear to have been asked to see if the climbers had any prior knowledge of the incoming storm. As a result, the fact the storm was forecast has lain out of the public domain ever since.

I can’t be sure why those who knew about the earlier weather forecasts didn’t correct this error in any of the numerous interviews they have given, or in their films and published accounts. I’ve had no answers from those involved that explains their reasons. There is a range of possible motives, some more damning than others. Only those who were fully aware of the forecasts being received at Base Camp prior to 10 May but who decided not to mention this crucial fact can truly know the answer to that question.